


Petra

by qwanderer



Series: brickverse [5]
Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kidfic, Mostly Fluff, Post-Canon, Tiny Angst, autistic kate moreau
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As surely as Neal Burke was a tiny con man, Petra Moreau was a tiny archaeologist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petra

For Peter Burke, life was good. Not perfect, but good. 

Baby Neal had Elizabeth's sparkling eyes and rounded cheeks, but when he got frustrated or confused, the consternation on his face was pure Peter. And he charmed everyone he met, from the day of his birth onwards. 

Peter didn't think they could have chosen a better name for him. 

* * *

The birthday card that first year had been incredible, wonderful. A confirmation that the man Peter had chased for so long was out there. Elizabeth always said she hoped it was more than that, hoped that it was testing the waters, and if no FBI investigation was forthcoming, he'd maybe decide to come back into their lives in a larger way. 

Peter didn't want to admit, either to her or to himself, that he shared that hope. 

But their Neal should know his namesake. Should know the man who'd been such a big part of his parents' lives for so long. 

Later that year, they got a Christmas card, a photograph of a wide-eyed baby in a pink hat splashed across it, and Peter had no idea who it was from, who else in their circle had just had a kid. 

The signatures named the family: Vic Moreau, Georgia Caffrey, and Petra Moreau. 

Petra. 

Peter was pleased and touched despite himself. Charmed, even, by the baby's round face. By his old friend returning the favor. 

And happy that his old friend, at times impulsive, irresponsible, and inclined to run, had found a life that would give him every reason to settle. 

* * *

Four years and eight or nine greeting cards later, when the postmarks had begun to settle into a definite pattern of having come from North Carolina or southern Virginia, something else arrived in the mail. 

It was a flyer for a bed and breakfast on the North Carolina coast, and scrawled inside it was a note: 

_If you've got some vacation days coming, I think I know just the place._

No signature, but Peter knew perfectly well who it was from, all the same. 

Elizabeth was thrilled, poring over the flyer with interested noises, looking at her husband with hope and that twinkle of mischief that he seemed to surround himself with. 

"Neal's going to be five this spring," she reminded Peter. "Just the right age for sandcastles and all of that. It would be great to be able to take him somewhere with a nice beach. God, I haven't had a real beach vacation since Belize. Remember that?" 

"How could I forget?" he asked. "You know, Caffrey helped me come up with that whole thing? The fire pit, the plane tickets?" 

"Well, I assumed he was in on it, given that it was his terrace and all." 

"Nah, it was more than that," he told her, wrapping her in his arms. "He told me about all the things he'd promised Kate, the things he couldn't follow through on, and then he asked me, 'have you made your wife any promises recently?' And it got me thinking." 

Elizabeth fingered the brochure. "'Georgia Caffrey.' Do you think he got a chance to keep his promises after all?" 

"You mean do I think the two of them are living near the beach, drinking good wine and living happily ever after?" He kissed her temple. "I really hope so, Hon. I never wanted him to lose Kate, not before he was ready to let her go and definitely not the way I saw it happen." 

"I want to know," Elizabeth said. "I want to know they're okay, and happy. This is an invitation, and I think we should take them up on it." 

"Yeah," Peter said, smiling at her. "I think you're right." 

* * *

On the drive down, they'd told their little Neal that the only things they were going to be buying on their stops were actual food - he had plenty of toys in the car. But he still conned his way into a pair of sparkly pink star-shaped sunglasses and a soft-serve ice cream cone. They'd learned that it was pretty much always worth it to see his tiny grin. 

* * *

The bed and breakfast really was very nice, and very close to the beach. The Burkes unpacked briefly, settling in, changing into beachwear and heading out. Neal had seen the ocean, of course, living in New York City with all its docks and islands and ferries, but he hadn't seen it like this. 

They all had a swim, and then Peter pitched an umbrella and he and El took turns helping their Neal with the epic sand fortifications that he had underway. 

Neal Caffrey found them as Peter was taking his turn under the umbrella, and he approached, elegant as ever despite his casual clothes and the wind whipping at the hair that peeked out under the straw trilby Peter had last seen in Cape Verde. 

A little girl sat on Neal's hip, as if she'd always been there. She had smoky grey-blue eyes that seemed to gaze far into the distance and she clutched a well-loved plush duck under one arm. 

Peter stood and walked over to greet them, looking his old friend up and down. Some small part of him hadn't believed he was actually alive until now. 

And he looked... healthy. Content. A few more lines on his face, but they only seemed to add to his charm. 

"Hello, Peter," he said, smiling crookedly. 

"Neal - " 

"Call me Vic. Please." 

"That's going to take some getting used to." 

"You never had a problem helping me keep a cover before." 

"Is that what this is, a cover?" 

"No, Peter. It's my life. And I'm Vic Moreau. As much as I was ever... anyone else. Can you handle that?" 

The girl wasn't looking at him, eyes still staring blankly into space as she clutched her duck. Peter wondered how much he'd told her about him. 

"So this is Petra?" he asked more quietly. 

"Yeah," ...Vic said with a sort of breathless wonder, looking down at the girl in his arms. "Petra," he told her, "this is Peter Burke. You were named after him." 

Petra looked at his hands, his collar, his mouth, but not his eyes. She didn't seem scared of him, just monumentally uninterested in his eyes when compared to everything else about him. She didn't seem interested in a greeting, either, but it didn't mean she didn't feel like talking. 

"Did you know that Petra means rock?" she asked, with obvious energy but not much in the way of tone. "Our house is made of brick but some houses are made of rocks. Our house is good but mommy says that in europe they have huge houses made of stone, all kinds of different ones, castles and cathedrals and towers and palaces and some day we can go to see them. I want to see them but it takes a long time to get there, even longer than it takes to get to pennsylvania. Did you know that there's a castle in pennsylvania where they have lots of stained glass windows from all over europe and it's just like a house except it's big and made of stone but they made it into a museum and it has all different art in it and it has a tiny elevator and it has a very tall tower and it has a statue from greece and it's made of stone but it looks like soft clothes, all ripply and did you know that when they made the pictures on the walls they put little pieces of colored glass together to make mosaics and the tour guide said that they put them together backwards on big sheets of paper but they needed a special glue to hold the bits of glass to the paper well enough but then come off again okay and they tried all different kinds of glue but the thing that worked best was melted jellybeans and did you know that there's a cathedral next door and it has lots of windows with lots of colors and pictures and they were all made special and did you know that you need all kinds of special equipment to cut glass with because otherwise it's really dangerous but someday daddy is going to teach me anyway because he knows how to do everything and did you know that it's really hard to forge a Tiffany lamp because the glass is all vareigated but daddy made me one anyway because I wanted a Venetian lamp but you don't have to worry because it's mine forever and I know it's a reproduction so it's not bad right?" 

"Right," Peter answered, a little stunned. His tiny namesake was only four and already she could remember all that, construct speeches like that? 

Well, the genes she was built out of were clearly extraordinary. 

"She likes you," Neal - Vic - said, smiling. 

"How can you tell?" Peter asked, suddenly unsure. His gut was leaving him at a loss when it came to this little girl. 

"I can tell," was all her father would say, smiling softly and pressing his face to her hair. 

Then little Neal came running across the sand, trailed closely by Elizabeth. 

"Hi," Neal greeted with bright, curious eyes and an engaging smile. "Who are you?" 

"Vic Moreau," Vic greeted, holding out a hand for the little boy to shake, without letting go of Petra with the other arm. "I'm an old friend of your parents'. And this is my daughter Petra." 

"I'm Neal," said little Neal, unselfconscious, unaware of who he was telling and what relevance it would have for him. 

"That's a good name," said Vic, eyes sparkling. 

"Hello, Petra," Neal said politely, turning to the girl. 

"Hello, Neal," Petra echoed by rote, looking at him in her roundabout way. 

"Do you want to play with me?" he asked her. "I've never been to the beach before but it's so much fun. My mom was teaching me how to make sandcastles. Have you been to the beach before?" 

"I've been here lots of times. I like the noises but I don't like touching the sand. I've never made sandcastles but there's lots of other things you can make out of sand and someday my dad's gonna teach me how to do glassblowing. But he says my uncle Mo is the best at it and if I get good enough he can be my teacher instead. Did you know glass is made of sand? But you have to melt it really hot." 

"That's pretty cool," Neal replied. "We don't have to do sandcastles. We could play something else." 

"I collect sea glass. We could look for some." Petra tapped a rhythm on her dad's arms and he let her down to land on the sand in her tiny galoshes. She didn't let go of her duck. 

"What's sea glass?" Neal asked, and off they went, chattering away and scouring the sand for little treasures. Petra's head weaved from side to side as she walked, as if she were dancing to a tune only she could hear. 

Vic watched them for a moment before turning back to the other two. 

"Elizabeth," said Vic. "It's been a long time." 

"Vic. It's Vic now, right?" El rushed forward to hug him. "It's so good to see you. You look good. You look happy." 

"It's good to see you too," Vic replied, holding her tight. "I've missed you. I've missed New York. How is everybody?" 

"Everybody's great," Elizabeth said. "June's holding up very well. She finally stopped treating your place like a museum. Did you know Clinton's moved in up there now? He helps her out with a lot of things. And I think he might be dating Cindy. Not sure how serious it is yet. Anyway, it's nice to see the place lived in again." 

"And Diana seems to have taken to DC this time," Peter added. "We're planning on visiting her and Theo on the way back up to New York." 

They chatted about Elizabeth's business, Peter's latest projects around the house, spiraling around and around the things Peter wanted to know the most. He got sick of it, and just asked. 

"It's been a long time," he commented to Vic. "Haven't heard from you much since your funeral." He looked hard at the man. "You didn't trust me not to go after you?" 

Vic shook his head. Took off his hat and ran fingers through his hair. "That's not it, Peter," he said. "I needed to know who I was without the anklet. You'd started to make me forget." 

Peter bit his lip, thinking that over. 

Elizabeth looked between the two of them. Then she cleared her throat. "It's getting late. We should figure out what we're doing for dinner," she said. "I'll go collect the kids." She started off after the little ones, leaving the two to talk. 

"So... how's work?" Vic asked. 

"Oh, you know," said Peter. "A lot less interesting without you around, is mostly what it is. We run financials, sit in the van, catch the bad guys." He snuck a glance at Vic before continuing, to see how he was reacting, but he just looked fond. "Jones's closing rate is actually up near what ours was, if you can believe that's possible without all those shortcuts and loopholes." 

Vic let out a breath of laughter through his nose. "I know you're dying to ask what I'm up to. So come on, let's have it." 

"Listen, I probably don't want to know how you're managing to pay for a mortgage and a kid...." 

"Yeah, you do, Peter, I promise." He folded out his credentials. "Private investigator. I did my three years as an art consultant with a firm of PI's and now I've got my own license, but I still work their cases when they ask me nicely, or if they're interesting." 

"And that pays the bills, huh?" 

"It's not New York," Neal said, "the mortgage isn't like the back-breaking ones you're used to dealing with, and I'm good, you know that. I'm in demand. We'd get by on my cases if we had to. But in New York, Kate was a starving artist, and here, what Georgia can get for her work is a nice amount to contribute to a household. It helps that she's got friends here, a network, even if she sometimes gets the prices she does by leaning a little harder on the 'outsider art' angle than she'd like." 

"'Outsider art,' how, exactly?" Peter asked. He couldn't entirely keep the suspicion out of his voice that Kate was pulling some kind of con. 

"You'll see," said Vic, no doubt in his voice. "Come back with us, for dinner. I can cook. Georgie's wrapped up in a painting right now, and anyway, she's always been more inclined to order pizza than put her energy into making art that won't last past tonight." 

"So Kate's really been alive all this time?" 

"Listen, Peter, you have to realize that neither of us are the people that you knew. Not just because our names have changed. And Georgia... please don't judge her by what you saw of Kate. You never did get to see her at her best." 

Maybe it was an accident, but this man being who he was, Peter suspected it was completely intentional when the glint of the sun off Vic's wedding band caught Peter's eye a moment later. 

"Come for dinner," he told Peter, a hint of a plea in his voice. "Let me show you what my life is now. I want to show you that I've changed. That I've gotten everything I ever really wanted. That I'm happy." 

"Yeah," said Peter, a little taken aback that he still mattered this much to Neal, to Vic, after everything that had changed. "Of course. Of course we will. That's why we're here." 

"Not to enjoy the sea breeze with your wife and mini-Neal?" Vic asked teasingly. 

"Well," Peter conceded dryly, "the B&B did come highly recommended by a source I trust." 

Peter could see Vic's eyes crinkle, and he knew that his opinion still mattered to this man, very much. 

* * *

It was a half-hour drive to the little brick house with a tiny, neat lawn and a deep purple front door. 

Kate had always seemed to like purple. 

The house was bright and the windows were full of suncatchers that ranged from the somewhat inexpert to the incredibly intricate. Peter, thinking of how Petra had known so much about glass art and techniques, wouldn't have ventured to guess how many were the girl's work and how many were her parents'. 

Vic settled Petra and his guests into the living room with drinks and went to find Kate. ...Georgia. Petra immediately got out a pad of thick, dark-black drawing paper and a set of oil pastels and began to draw. Bright, precise, a rose window began to form under her small fingers. 

The lost Mosconi rosette had never been found. To his surprise, Peter found that he would neither be shocked nor displeased to find that it now hung in the window of this little girl's bedroom. 

"Wo-o-ow," little Neal said, entranced. "How do you color so well without any lines?" 

"I just do," Petra said without looking away from her work. "Daddy says I have a natural eye for geometry." 

"Can I try?" Neal asked. 

Petra frowned at his hands for a moment, then set aside her work to go and get another pad of black paper and a slightly more well-used set of pastels. She set them in front of the older boy, then returned to her own picture. 

Neal tried to imitate her work, but the panes of his window were crooked, the oil pastels streaked together in odd ways. But he persevered, and all together, the effect was impressive. He handed the finished product to Elizabeth with hands streaked with the greasy pigments. Elizabeth "ooh"ed and "ahh"ed appropriately, and said, "Now make sure to thank Petra for letting you use her things." 

"Thank you, Petra," Neal said obediently. 

Peter looked over to the girl and found, to his shock, that Kate had come in and sat down next to her daughter without triggering Peter's awareness that she was even there. 

Kate had changed. 

Her face was as unreadable as ever, but without the perfectly applied makeup and the cascade of long straight hair and the clearly fabricated expression of attentiveness, she looked a lot less like she was trying on purpose to hide something. 

Today, she didn't even pretend to have eyes for anyone but her daughter. 

"Georgia Caffrey," Peter said, trying out the name. 

"Hello, Peter," said Kate in her old even, nearly inflectionless tone. She nodded, but didn't look in his direction. "It's good that you're here. Vic's missed you." 

"I'm glad to be here," Peter said, surprised to realize how much he meant it. "Listen, I know we didn't always get along very well in the past, but...." 

"That's the past," Georgia said firmly. "You're welcome here." 

Without her eyes, with her face turned away to watch her daughter draw beside her, Peter was forced to rely on other cues to try and read her. The fingers of one hand clenched and unclenched, her left, which now held a gold wedding band, the same as Neal's. Vic's. 

No gemstones. 

She was committed to this, diamonds or no diamonds, and she was nervous. It mattered to her what Peter thought. Of her, of the life she'd made with his friend. 

"Georgia," he said gently, "I don't want to make the same mistakes I've made in the past. I'm sorry I didn't believe him when he told me you were in danger. I misjudged you. But I hope you can understand that I very rarely come across someone who I find as difficult to read as you." He nodded at Petra. "And your daughter's one of them. But I'm pretty sure she's too young to be doing it on purpose." 

"And that's frustrating," Kate - Georgia - guessed, with a hint of a smile. "I get that. I'm not very good at reading _most_ people. There's a rift, between people like us and people like you. Vic's a rare person, to be able to bridge that gap." 

"He is a rare person," Peter agreed. "But - I'm sorry." He frowned. "I still don't understand. People like you?" 

Georgia's hand clenched again, in a quick rhythm like the heart of a small animal, and Peter understood that it was a tell, one she'd never allowed herself in her old life, but it was also somehow more than a tell. She still didn't look at him. She looked out the window, to the drinks on the table, to little Neal sitting in Elizabeth's lap, their effusive touch and animated speech so different than the stillness of Georgia and her daughter Petra, both involved in their own tasks but still content to be close. 

"What do you know about autism, Peter?" 

Autism. 

It wasn't a thing he'd given a lot of thought, admittedly. What little he knew of it was from movies and TV, and he hated to rely on things like that, considering how they usually showed law enforcement. 

"It's, uh... a disease?" he ventured. 

"No," Georgia said calmly. "It's who we are." 

"Okay," said Peter. "Tell me." 

Georgia talked in fits and starts, as if she were turning over every phrase, every sentence carefully before she said it, as if they were skipping stones and she was judging them for distance. 

"Petra and I are on the spectrum," she said. "The way we process senses like sound and touch and smell is different. We don't intuitively understand or transmit the same nonverbal queues as the people you're used to. We're both comfortable with speaking aloud, most of the time, which gives us an advantage... navigating the rest of society." 

Peter nodded. That made sense, as far as it went. "So how would I know if someone like you was lying?" 

She laughed, quiet but sudden, almost a cough. "You wouldn't," she told him. "You know the things you know because your gut tells you. It knows things without you knowing how you know them. It's based on human baselines of behavior, on tells, on unconscious interpersonal systems we're not part of. That's like... an ornithologist asking how he would know if a fish was breathing. It doesn't, not the way he means." 

"Are you saying you don't lie?" 

"I say things that are meant to deceive, the same way a fish has motions that can oxygenate its blood. But it uses almost none of the same mechanics you're used to. You're an ornithologist. You would need to become an icthyologist, as well. Then you might know." 

"Huh," said Peter. And for the moment, he left it at that. 

Vic appeared again, telling them that food was in progress, and he had a little time. He commented on Petra's technique, then asked her if she'd like to give the Burkes a brief tour of the house. 

little Neal was curious, always poking his nose into everything and getting in trouble. Peter was in the habit of barking "Neal!" every time he saw little fingers slipping into somewhere he was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be. 

It inevitably happened several times over the course of the tour, in this little house full of art and paints and chemicals and various equipment. 

Peter thought he could see Victor fighting not to jerk his head up every time Peter said "Neal!" in that voice. 

After that, he maybe did it a little more often than necessary, because it was... just a little bit funny. 

And maybe, though Peter did not want to admit this to himself, he did it to help Vic stop reacting to the name he'd called himself for so long, even when it was said by a very familiar voice. To help Vic keep his cover here. To help him keep what he'd planned and worked and hoped so hard for. 

Peter wondered how they kept Petra out of all of the messy and dangerous and fragile things here, but when Neal started asking her instead of touching first and asking questions later, she always seemed to have an answer - exactly what it was, exactly what it did, not to touch it unless Mom or Dad was there and you knew what you were doing. 

She seemed like such a perfect, smart, well-behaved, easy-to-handle kid, and Peter had the fleeting and immediately quashed thought that Neal Caffrey had gotten away easier than he deserved many times in his life and this was the latest of those times. 

Vic and Georgia obviously did so much for this kid. They weren't shirking their responsibilities here, not in any way. 

* * *

They settled into the kitchen to watch Vic put the finishing touches on their meal - steamed corn on the cob was taken out of its pot and cut into neat sections, strips of chicken were tossed in a glaze. Homemade salad dressing shaken to blend it together. 

Peter thought it was sweet how the man he'd known to be such a food snob had learned to adapt to a kid's tastes. 

On the other hand, he'd probably only been that way because of the way Peter reacted, because he found it funny to gang up on him with El and get him to eat "fancy" things for their amusement. With every time the man had ever mentioned Georgie and her love of pizza delivery as a concept, not just tolerantly, but fondly, Peter thought he should have known that the snobbery was an act. 

In any case, the food was excellent. 

Petra ate her corn methodically, chewing away three neat rows before popping the rest of the kernels neatly out of their places with her teeth. 

With some of the more uncomfortable conversations out of the way, the dinner conversation between the adults was animated and lively - well, in Georgia's case, intermittently animated, as she made no effort to put feeling behind her words unless she was imitating someone else's mannerisms to make a point. Neal seemed happy enough, chewing on his food and listening semi-interestedly and drumming his feet softly against the legs of his chair. 

Petra was quiet, and that didn't give Peter any warning, since he knew he couldn't read her. But when she started rocking in her chair, Georgie's eyes went straight to her, and Vic followed that motion, and he immediately went silent, mid-word. 

"Status, Pet?" he asked softly, a minute later. 

She didn't speak, she didn't stop rocking, but half a minute later there came a knocking sound from the seat of her chair. 

_tap tap tap_

_tap. tap. tap._

_tap tap tap_

Peter winced. 

"What? What's wrong?" little Neal asked, picking up on his dad's displeasure. 

"Shh, Neal," El whispered, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. "In a minute, okay?" 

Petra whined, high and distressed. 

Vic put a finger to his lips, to indicate silence was what was needed most, before any of them could ask. Peter could tell that the not being able to do anything was getting to Vic. He actually broke first. 

"Pet. Honey. You're okay. You want me to sing?" 

Petra shook her head, short and vigorous, and kept rocking. 

One of Georgia's hands went to Vic's hair, tangling in it and stroking gently. The other poised itself on the table, near Petra, and began the softest audible drumming. 

_tap tap -_

_tap tap. tap tap_

_tap. tap. tap._

_tap tap tap tap._

_tap -_

_tap. tap tap. tap._

Peter recognized the message there, and stopped listening in. It wasn't meant for him. 

He remembered what Neal had always said about judging relationships being like authenticating Picassos. He remembered telling Neal what it meant when he called El "Hon." 

It didn't have to be obvious or outright. You just had to care about each other. Show each other. But Kate - Georgie - she cared. And she showed it, in her own quiet way. 

Vic's hand curled loosely on the table, easy for Petra to reach out and take his hand, but neither parent touched her, and she didn't reach out. 

Abruptly Petra rose jerkily from her seat and ran out of the room, retreating down the hallway. In the silence, everyone heard her door close. 

Vic and Georgia stood and melted into each other as if no one else was there, as if the only thing holding them together was each other. Georgia's fingers kept moving through Vic's hair and down over his neck and jaw, and Vic's right thumb tapped a rhythm on Georgia's shoulder. 

This time, Peter didn't try to figure out what it meant. 

This time, Peter already knew everything he needed to know. 

"What's wrong?" Neal asked. "What happened to Petra?" 

Vic looked up from where his face had been buried in Georgia's hair, and gave the boy a weak smile. "She'll be okay," he told Neal. "She just gets overwhelmed sometimes. Especially by lots of unfamiliar noises. Normally I keep an eye out for that but I got really distracted talking to your parents, since we haven't seen each other in a while." 

Elizabeth frowned a little. "You don't have many dinner guests, then, do you?" 

"Enough," said Vic. "But mostly people more like Georgia and Petra - Georgia's friends from after Kate but before Victor. Moz comes down occasionally, but only by himself. Usually even meals with company are... a little quieter than this." 

Peter sighed a little. "I'm sorry we disrupted your life. It's... different than I expected. You really have changed, haven't you?" 

Vic turned his slightly sad smile on Peter. "I'm always changing," he said. "Always have, always will. But I've wanted this life - these parts of it - since before I met you." 

Peter was starting to not just believe that, but see it. See that this life was just as much of a challenge, in its own way, as the con, the kind of challenge that his friend was built for. 

* * *

Petra came back in time for dessert, clutching her stuffed duck hard and going straight for Vic, burrowing into his arms as if they were a cocoon. He joggled her as if she were still an infant, humming a familiar tune. 

After that, little Neal began to automatically mirror Petra, moving around the Moreau household with slow precision and minimal noise. He still asked her things, because she seemed to like answering questions about the things she knew. After dinner she showed off the rest of her collection of sea glass, explaining what made the different colors. 

The little con man, learning to mold his approach to his mark. And the little archaeologist, unearthing her treasures and learning everything she could about them. 

They'd been named right, there was no doubt about that. 

**Author's Note:**

> PS the museum mentioned herein is [Glencairn Museum](http://www.glencairnmuseum.org/), which holds a special place in my heart.


End file.
